Ubricoin Business Model

Our goal is to get Ubricoin to be accepted by 2024, as
standard method of payment for the 14 million families in Kenya. Complete
acceptance will mean that all transactions in the country will go through
Ubricoin.

We hope that people will use Ubricoin for making payments for groceries, school fees, medical care, transport, entertainment and for capital purchases such as vehicles, buildings, land, for funding capital projects. In addition people will use Ubricoin to pay for all kinds of professional services to providers. Architects, engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and the like, will accept Ubricoin for services provided. Paraprofessionals: technicians, plumbers, carpenters, and all labor providers in general, will accept UBN as payment for their labor.

Business people will pay for the purchasers in UBN. Petrol station owners will pay petroleum dealers with UBN. The dealers will then pay the refiners in UBN, thus covering the supply side. On the demand side people will buy petroleum using UBN. Similarly, restaurant owners will pay for groceries and other restaurant supplies in UBN. The customers will, in turn, pay restaurant owners in UBN. In the travel business, people will pay for tickets, hotel accommodation, meals and other travel amenities in UBN. UBN will generally be accepted in all transactions, in both the supply side and the demand side of business.

Implementation
Strategy

Rogers (1983), explained that adoption of innovations such as Ubricoin encounters five categories of people:

Innovators, who want to be the first to try the innovation. They are venturesome and interested in new ideas. Innovators are willing to take risks, and are often the first to develop new ideas. Very little, if anything, needs to be done to appeal to innovators.

Early adopters are opinion leaders. They enjoy leadership roles, and embrace change opportunities. Early adopters are already aware of the need to change and so are very comfortable adopting new ideas. Strategies to appeal to this population include how-to manuals and information sheets on implementation. They do not need information to convince them to change.

Early majority, rarely leaders, typically need to see evidence that the innovation works before they are willing to adopt. Strategies to appeal to this population include success stories and evidence of the innovation’s effectiveness.

Late majority, skeptical of change, will only adopt an innovation after it has been tried by majority. Strategies to appeal to this population include information on how many other people have tried the innovation and have adopted it successfully.

Laggards are bound by tradition and very conservative. They are very skeptical of change and are the hardest group to bring on board. Strategies to appeal to this population include statistics, fear appeals, and pressure from people in the other adopter groups.

Among the 14 million families in Kenya, the following table indicates the number of families in each category.

Table 1. Adoption profile of Ubricoin by families in Kenya, by 2024

Categories

Percentage %

Number of families

Innovators

2.5

350,000

Early
adopters

13.5

1,890,000

Early
majority

34

4,760,000

Late
majorities

34

4,760,000

Laggards

16

2,240,000

Total

100

14,000,000

By 2024, we expect that Ubricoin will be used for transactions by 11,760,000 families of the 14 million families in Kenya. The 2,240,000 families remaining, represent the laggards, who in Roger’s model, may not adopt Ubricoin as their standard mode of payment. Non-the-less, they are highly likely to interact with people using Ubricoin such that they will be indirect users. For example, a laggard could receive Ubricoin sent to him or her through a neighbor. Other laggards may request friends, relatives or neighbors to help with shopping using UBN.

Value Creation

While Rogers informs us about the likelihood of people adopting particular innovation, Metcalfe (1980), is instructive about how Ubricoin will gain value in the market. According to Metcalfe’s Law, the value of a network is directly proportional to the square of its users (V = n2). Ubricoin is already a currency. We do not need to hedge the value of the coin with fiat currency. We only need to create a network of Ubricoin holders to use it as common tender (see e.g., Bendell, Slater, & Ruddick, 2015). Our target in the primary stage is to help at least one million people create Ubricoin wallets. By Metcalfe’s law this will translate to a value of one million squared; that is, a value of one trillion.

We have set aside two billion UBN to be distributed to one million people to facilitate adoption by the 11,760,000 people by 2024. The principle mechanism for distributing the two billion Ubricoin is by allocating the coins directly from the main contract to individual wallets held by people in disparate locations in the country.

Primary Network Creation

We have developed a program for creating and building the network. Network creation involves distributing the coin to different generations with specified distribution conditions. Generations refers to the source of the Ubricoins. For example first generation (G1) comprises people who receive UBN directly from Ubricoin contract assisted by Ubrica team. The second generation (G2) comprises people who receive help from the first generation (G1) to open wallets. The third generation (G3) comprises people who receive help from the first generation (G2) to open wallets, and so on. We have created a referral program to reward each generation as an incentive to help us reach the one million target.

G1 will receive 10,000 Ubricoin from the Ubrica team. G1 will then receive 1000 UBN when they help five people open new wallets. The five people now become G2. G2 then receives 10,000 UBN from the contract and they get 1,000 UBN for every five new wallets opened. The new wallets which form G3 are then credited with UBNs and gets rewards for every 5 wallet opened. In all the generations Ubricoin transferred after they open new wallets are reimbursed and are encouraged to continue recruiting.

Secondary Network Creation

Soko Janja will be our secondary mechanism for coin distribution and adoption. People will use Ubricoin on Soko Janja to purchase. People will also receive new coins as loyalty point for purchasing in Soko Janja. The incentive program will also act as a mechanism of distributing Ubricoins in future. When the rating system is built people will receive Ubricoin for doing good in the community.

References

Bendell, J., Slater, M., & Ruddick, W. (2015). Re-imagining money to broaden the future of development finance: What Kenyan community currencies reveal is possible for financing development. UNTISD Working Paper, No. 2015-10, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Geneva